The Home Depot Of Cannabis: How GrowGeneration Pitched Itself To A Room Of Investors

The 2019 Benzinga Cannabis Capital Conference in Miami Beach included investor presentations from dozens of companies. The following are highlights of what executives from GrowGeneration, Vinzan International, LGC Capital and VividGro had to say about their companies to a roomful of investors.

Click here to see full investor presentations from the Benzinga Cannabis Capital Conference.

GrowGeneration

President and co-founder Michael Salaman referred to GrowGeneration Corp GRWG as “the Home Depot Inc HD of cannabis.”

GrowGeneration is the fastest-growing and largest operator of cannabis-focused garden centers in the U.S., Salman said, having experienced 100-percent year-over-year revenue growth every year since the company’s founding in 2014.

“We are a critical supply chain that reaches every single cannabis — and now hemp — farmer in the United States,” he said.

GrowGeneration has 20 locations in eight states, but will be in Canada by the second quarter of 2019. CEO Darren Lampert said the company recently filed an application to list on the Nasdaq exchange.

Vinzan International

Vinzan International is a global agricultural company with operations in Europe, South America and Southeast Asia with a core focus on processing and extraction facilities.

Founder Brian Armstrong compared the company to Cargill in the way the business is set up, in that it has contract farming operations globally and arbitrages them. Vinzan does the same thing. 

Armstrong highlighted Vinzan’s growing assets in Medellin, Colombia and northern Laos.

Vinzan is closing its first round of funding in February and will be going public on the TSX Exchange in the second quarter of 2019, Armstrong said. The company will be profitable at the point of the IPO, he said.

LGC Capital

LGC Capital LGGCF is a registered investment management company listed on the TSX.

The company invests in domestic operations globally, with a presence in Canada, Jamaica, the U.K., Switzerland, Australia and Italy. Their premium investments in those markets are Viridi, EasyJoint, Little Green Pharma and One Premium Cannabis.

“We’ve been told by a number of people we’re one of the purest European plays out there,” said CEO John A.D. McMullen.

Though LGC does not invest in the U.S. as of now, the company said it’s possible in the future. Part of the reason for that is the first-mover advantage of Europe: the European cannabis market will reach $98 billion five years earlier than the U.S., McMullen said.

“Everybody loves the Canadian market, but it’s [only] $10 billion."

Noted short seller Hindenburg Research has gone long LGC, McMullen said.

VividGro

VividGro pitches itself as a consolidation play in agriculture tech that uses hardware and software to automate indoor horticulture and increase crop yields.

The company is a spinoff of Lighting Science Group, the largest consumer of LEDs in the world by volume. Their core product offering is a LED lighting solution for growhouses.

VividGro is crop-agnostic — 50 percent of its business comes from non-cannabis industries, though CEO David Friedman said the company expects the majority of growth to come from cannabis.

He also told the room the company intends to be very aggressive on M&A going forward. 

“We believe there is a lot of opportunity for consolidation in the ag tech industry,” Friedman said. “There are a lot of small players with interesting technologies that, as a standalone technology, are going to have difficulty scaling.”

Friedman is also the founding partner of Panther Capital. Panther’s second fund, the Panther Opportunity Fund, closed its latest round in January and has raised $5.5 million from 55 investors.

The fund has exposure to five ancillary companies, including VividGro and one plant-touching company. 

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